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Fear Conditioning And Extinction In Childhood Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Joseph F. Mcguire

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fear conditioning and extinction are central in the cognitive behavioral model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which underlies exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Youth with OCD may have impairments in conditioning and extinction that carries treatment implications. The present study examined these processes using a differential conditioning paradigm. Forty-one youth (19 OCD, 22 community controls) and their parents completed a battery of clinical interviews, rating scales, and a differential conditioning task. Skin conductance response (SCR) served as the primary dependent measure across all three phases of the conditioning procedure (habituation, acquisition, and extinction). During habituation, no meaningful differences were observed between …

A Comparative Case Study: An Examination Of How Literature Assists Children Experiencing A Trauma, Michelle Clare Benoit

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This case study, with four elementary school students as participants, examined the use of books and bibliotherapy when experiencing a traumatic incident. Utilizing fiction books, I explored how literature could be a powerful tool for overcoming life-altering events and circumstances, such as losing a pet, going through a divorce, or dealing with a grandparent who is suffering from Alzheimer's, with a bully in school, or the death of a loved one. Bibliotherapy could also be effective when used with individuals that stutter, children with dyslexia, and children coping with death or a parental mental illness. For this study, the data …

Johnson’S Differentiation Theory: Is It Really Empirically Supported?, Joan S. Meier

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Michael Johnson’s differentiation of ‘‘types’’ of domestic violence has had a significant impact on courts and providers, in part because of its claim to an empirical basis. Unfortunately, the label ‘‘situational couple violence’’ has already been used by judges and evaluators to minimize abuse claims in custody cases. Johnson’s repeated assertion that SCV is the most common form of domestic violence reinforces the marginalizing of domestic violence. But what do his data actually show? Here Professor Meier takes a close look at the research Johnson relies on and finds that it fails to prove his thesis. Rather, the data suggest …

Children's Health In A Legal Framework, Elizabeth S. Scott, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

The interdisciplinary periodical Future of Children has dedicated an issue to children’s health policy. This contribution to the issue maps the legal landscape influencing policy choices. The authors demonstrate that in the U.S. legal system, parents have robust rights, grounded in the Constitution, to make decisions concerning their children’s health and medical treatment. Following from its commitment to parental rights, the system typically assumes the interests of parents and children are aligned, even when that assumption seems questionable. Thus, for example, parents who would limit their children’s access to health care on the basis of the parents’ religious belief have …

Silence Improves Anxiety Levels And Test Scores Among Children With Disabilities, Hanna Matatyaho

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students with disabilities may experience more anxiety when taking a test than do students without a disability. The purpose of this study was to assess whether a technique called 1-minute of silence reduces anxiety and improves test scores among students with disabilities. The theoretical framework for this study was the theory of planned behavior/reasoned action and the health belief model. Two research questions were used, one to determine the difference in anxiety levels in students with special needs and the other to determine the difference in New York State (NYS) Math posttest scores in children with special needs (no silence, …

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act And High School Obesity, Derek Grills

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

United States high school student obesity rates have doubled in the past 30 years to 13%, threatening the health of millions of adolescents. To mitigate the epidemic, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) in 2010, which mandated significant changes to school nutrition and physical education. From a public policy perspective, the HHFKA changed school nutrition and exercise policy to affect obesity rates by changing intake and energy expenditure at school, though no study using national-level data examined this relationship. As such, the purpose of the study was to examine whether HHFKA policy compliance had a statistically significant effect …

African American Eighth Grade Students' Attitudes Toward Hiv/Aids In The District Of Columbia, Enock Kolawole Adewuyi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The group most affected by HIV/AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is African Americans. The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge of HIV/AIDS held by African American children as a first step towards developing prevention strategies for these youths. In order to bridge the knowledge-behavior gap, this study sought to investigate the attitude towards HIV/AIDS of African American 8th grade students. The study involved secondary data from the 2012 District of Columbia (DC) Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey, obtained from the District of Columbia Office of Superintendent of Education (OSSE). Guided …

Lived Experiences Of Military Personnel Reintegrating With Their Preschool Aged Children, Rob Atchison

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have indicated that school-aged children with a caregiver who had been deployed were more likely to exhibit emotional and behavioral problems. These problems were impacted by the ability of the parent at home to manage emotions so as to utilize appropriate parenting skills with the child. However, there remained an important gap in the literature regarding the experiences of the military personnel reintegrating with their preschool aged child. Therefore, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to address the experiences of military caregivers with their preschool-aged children through semistructured interviews to better understand the variables that impacted the ability …

Examining Behavioral Reactivity And Cognitive Differences Within The Chc Theory Of Intelligence Among Children., Steven Matthew Jozwiak

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Linking cognition and behavior has long been an area of interest to the field of psychology in its endeavors to understand what innate factors influence human behavior. To date, the majority of research linking emotional reactivity to cognition has focused on single areas of intellectual functioning on specific diagnostic profiles or learning disorders rather than a comprehensive comparison to cognitive profile typology. Nearly all the research conducted to date continues to define cognition and emotion as disparate entities, rather than exploring a more integrated view of emotion and cognition. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine cognitive profile …

Teacher Perceptions Of Elementary Children's Internalizing Symptoms When Experiencing Parental Wartime Military Deployment, Letitia Henson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Military wartime deployment of parents has a powerful and potentially damaging impact on their young children. As tours lengthen and deployments of military parents become more frequent, the possible negative effects on the children increase proportionally. This quantitative, comparative study evaluated internalizing symptoms among 220 young children who had a parent currently on military deployment and a parent who returned from military deployment compared to a control group of same age peers whose parents were nonmilitary. Using the theoretical frameworks of attachment theory and ambiguous loss theory, the study investigated 3 internalizing symptoms: Anxiety/Depressed, Withdrawn/Depressed behaviors, and Somatic Complaints among …

Content Analysis Of Archetypal Portrayal Of Females In Picture Books Read In Preschool Classrooms, Karen Lynn Ellefsen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Literature that depicts females in restrictive roles may limit girls' aspirations and success. Previous studies of award-winning books for young children have found gender-stereotypical role portrayal to be common. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis was to identify the archetypal roles assigned to female characters in picture books read aloud by teachers in the preschool classroom. The conceptual framework for this study was derived from feminist theory and Jungian archetypes. Data were collected in the form of teachers' logs of books they read aloud over a 2-week period. Data were analyzed by employing the 3-read method developed by Madsen, …

Early Screening And Identification Of Preschool Children Affected By Serious Emotional Disorders, Cathy Renee Robey-Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Mental illness has surpassed physical health problems as the leading cause for morbidity and mortality in American children. National prevalence of serious emotional disorders in the 0-5 age group has ranged from 9.5% to 14.2%. Of the 15 million children affected by mental illness, less than 20- 25% receive any treatment. Nationwide, early screening, identification, and treatment of preschoolers with emotional or behavioral disorders have become a critical priority in order to reduce the increasing burden of healthcare costs for mental illness and psychiatric care. The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of a screening process for …

Developing, Implementing, And Evaluating A No-Child-Left-Inside Pilot Program, Claudia Radel, Jamie C. Brand, Roslynn Brain

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

We describe experience with a pilot week-long, No-Child-Left-Inside (NCLI), outdoor program implemented in Cache Valley, Utah, in 2012. Through response analysis of a “pre-then-post” children's survey and a parent-completed demographic survey, we assess program effectiveness in raising children's enthusiasm for nature-related behaviors and in reaching a target audience of all local families. The program reached many families with low participation in other conservation programs but failed to reach families from the growing Latino population. Participating children experienced increased excitement to spend more time outdoors exploring and learning, accomplishing NCLI goals of laying a groundwork for children's enhanced environmental literacy.

Mind+Body: An Ethnodrama About Adolescent And Young Adult Oncology, Jake Russell Thompson

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The first thing many people think of as a “cancer patient” tends to be an elderly person, or perhaps a child too young to understand what’s happening — pink ribbons and fundraising walks, weak and feeble bodies too sick and delicate to function. These notions of a “quintessential cancer patient” are both limiting in their scope of what the disease actually is, and isolating to younger people going through it. For people who don’t fit this predetermined idea of the psychological, physical, and emotional development of a cancer patient (specifically, the seventeen to thirty-five age range), isolation becomes another side …

Nutrition-Related Conditions Among Children Of Migrant And Seasonal Farmworkers In The United States: Causes And Solutions, Rebecca Halvorson

Food Science and Nutrition

The purpose of this literature review is to determine the prevalence of nutrition-related conditions among children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) compared to national averages, as well as effectiveness of strategies for minimizing any health discrepancies. MSFW live under harsh conditions, engage in long hours of physically demanding labor, and receive insufficient income. Compounding demographic characteristics create insurmountable barriers to quality health care and nutrition education resulting in disproportionately unhealthy children within the MSFW population as compared to the greater US population. The prevalence of overweight, obesity, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and numerous infections is higher among MSFW children. …

Portrayals Of Mental Illness And Physical Disability In 21st Century Children's Animation., Amy Sue Marie Miller

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

The objective of this study was to evaluate the presence of mental and physical disability in children's animation, and to understand image of mental or physical disability the animation portrayed. Three animated movies and one 61 episode animated series were coded for verbal references to mental illness and physical disability. Visual images and thematic elements portraying disability were also examined. All of the animations contained verbal as well as visual references to disability. Verbal references appeared with an average of 13.2 references per hour of animation. The connotations of these references often went against negative stereotypes of disability. These findings …

Students Seeking Attention, Dan Lecheler

Counselor Education Capstones

There are numerous reason’s to help explain why children behave the way they do. Sometimes they may be trying to selfishly get something, please an adult or are seeking praise and approval. Sometimes they may be trying to replace something that is absent from their life. Children are not adept at discussing their thoughts and feelings. Often times they communicate through their behavior. For elementary-aged students, the classroom becomes an early setting where disruptive behaviors can have them standing out from their same-aged peers. This Capstone Project will examine the possible correlation between students who disrupt their classrooms by way …

Psychological And Genetic Contributions To The Development Of Social Cognition In Children, Jacqueline Marie Klaver

Dissertations

This study examined the development of social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as well as the influence of behavioral and molecular genetics on these higher-order cognitive abilities. Specifically, it was hypothesized that children with ASD would perform more poorly on all social cognitive tasks compared with typically developing peers. In addition, it was hypothesized that typically developing children who performed better on a simpler social cognitive task at ages 3 or 4 would perform better at follow-up (i.e., one time between the ages of 6-10). Lastly, it was hypothesized that children who had at least …

Second Look Commission 2014 Annual Report, Tennessee. Commission On Children And Youth.

Second Look Commission Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Working Memory, Emotion Regulation, And Effortful Control Levels In Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder., James Rush

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

A Suryey Of Music Therapists' Use Of Music To Facilitate Reading Development In Children, Cynthia Cross

Masters Theses

This study utilized Naturalistic Inquiry methods to investigate how music therapists use music elements to impact reading development in school-aged children. Eleven Board-Certified Music Therapists were interviewed providing information regarding music therapy interventions, reading skills targeted, theoretical influences, and professional influences. Transcripts of interviews were analyzedto determine themes, coÍtmon use of language related to the subject, common perceptions, and techniques and uses for music to impact reading development. In general subjects did not report specifically using music elements to target reading behavior. Rather, most subjects identified reading objectives determined by classroom teachers and developed music interventions to accommodate those objectives. …

Psychometric Properties Of The Arabic Version Of The Perceived Physical Ability  Scale For Children In Oman, Sabry M. Abd-El-Fattah

Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies

This study aimed at examining the psychometric properties of the Perceived Physical Ability Scale for Children (PPASC) within an Omani context. A sample of 250 fourth graders (130 males and 120 females) from six public primary schools in four governorates in Oman responded to Arabic translated version of the PPASC. Data on students' in-class physical activity, social desirability, and teachers' nominations of students' physical ability were also collected. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the unidimensional model of the PPASC had adequate fit to the data. Multigroup CFA revealed gender invariance for PPASC unidimensional model when it was compared across male …

The Presentation Of Childhood Parental Divorce In Adulthood: A Retrospective Phenomenological Study, Sheala Catherine Morrison

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has been a wealth of research aimed at developing an understanding of the way in which the experience of divorce impacts children. However, adult children of divorce have been widely underrepresented in this literature, much of which is outdated being at least ten years old. With shifting societal attitudes and the transformation of the family system since the 1990's it is crucial that the research is updated in order to stay up on the way children and families are impacted in today's society. The purpose of this study was to hear directly from adults who experienced their parents' divorce …

Therapeutic Camps And Their Impact On The Family Of Children With Special Health Care Needs: A Mixed Method Study, Brandi Lindsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children with a chronic illness or disability can encounter many difficulties throughout their lifetimes. Respite care through therapeutic summer day camps is a service used to relieve the physical and mental strains placed on caregivers while also creating unique opportunities to benefit the child. There are gaps in the literature surrounding therapeutic camps and their benefit for the family and their ability to manage the child’s special health care need. The purpose of this study is to determine how respite care in the form of a therapeutic summer day camp for children with special needs impacts a family’s ability to …

Retention Of Low Income Children In Three Dental Studies Investigating Early Childhood Caries, Ann H. Saba, John J. Warren, Karin Weber-Gasparoni, Deborah V. Dawson

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Background: To our knowledge no dental studies have looked closely at subject retention, which is crucial to better understand oral health disparities. In this paper, we report retention rates and review and attempt to assess which retention strategies utilized in 3 dental research studies investigating ECC were effective for retaining WIC-enrolled children. The purpose of this paper is to discuss challenges that were encountered when working with these populations, describe characteristics of those not retained, and summarize some recommendations for future dental studies working at WIC sites. Methods: Three dental studies were conducted at WIC clinics in Iowa. Retention strategies …

Longer Gestation Among Children Born Full Term Influences Cognitive And Motor Development, Emma V. Espel, Laura M. Glynn, Curt A. Sandman, Elyssia Poggi Davis

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Children born preterm show persisting impairments in cognitive functioning, school achievement, and brain development. Most research has focused on implications of birth prior to 37 gestational weeks; however, the fetal central nervous system continues to make fundamental changes throughout gestation. Longer gestation is associated with reduced morbidity and mortality even among infants born during the period clinically defined as full term (37–41 gestational weeks). The implications of shortened gestation among term infants for neurodevelopment are poorly understood. The present study prospectively evaluates 232 mothers and their full term infants (50.4% male infants) at three time points across the first postnatal …

Factors Associated With Physical Activity In Kindergarten Children, Carol L. Hammonds, Janet C. Meininger

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Session presented on Sunday, July 27, 2014:

Purpose: Reversing obesity is an urgent public health need for children: worldwide, in 2011 more than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight 1. Increasing intensity and duration of physical activity (PA) is a strategy to aid in preventing and reducing obesity. According to limited available research, PA in kindergarten children is decreasing below recommended guidelines and sedentary behavior is increasing 2; the potential to change the obesity trajectory, however, is greater in early childhood when healthy behaviors are 'imprinted' and entrenched 3. More than 11,207,000 children in the United …

The Family Partners For Health Study: A Randomized Cluster Control Trial For Child And Parent Weight Management, Diane C. Berry, Madeline Neal, Natnaree Aimyong, Robert G. Mcmurray, Gail D'Eramo Melkus, Emily Gail Hall, Todd A. Schwartz, Dean J. Amatuli

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Session presented on Sunday, July 27, 2014:

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test a two-phased nutrition and exercise education, coping skills training, and exercise intervention for overweight or obese low-income ethnic minority 2nd to 4th grade children and their parents in rural North Carolina, U.S.

Methods: A cluster randomized controlled trial was carried out with 358 children (7-10 years) and a parent (n = 358). General linear mixed models were used to determine the effects of the intervention on weight, adiposity, health behaviors and eating and exercise self-efficacy by examining changes in children and parents from baseline …

Cinekyd: Exploring The Origins Of Youth Media Production, Renee Hobbs, David Cooper Moore

Journal of Media Literacy Education

No abstract provided.

The Pastor's Faithless Child: Strengthening Methods For Hurting Parent-Pastors, Ryan Ayers

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Parent-pastors face challenges when balancing vocational and familial responsibilities every day, and when faithless adolescent children are part of their family dynamic the hardship is magnified. These pastors often experience debilitating critique from their faith communities and colleagues while carrying the burden of raising a rebellious child. Utilizing a phenomenological study process, one hundred transparent interviews with parent-pastors are used to identify assumptions and realities surrounding the hurting parent-pastor's dilemma. Leading principles that have helped other parent-pastors cope with the overwhelming affects of their child's behavior will be introduced, empowering those who are hurting identify their stress points and overcome …